The White Sox spring training non-roster invitee list felt a little light on outsiders for a club that could offer ample playing time to veterans or fringe players in search of earnable playing time.
Apparently the memo was still circulating, because the White Sox signed added two minor league contracts of note on Friday, while also adding another lefty reliever to the wide-open bullpen competition via waiver claim.
Brandon Drury and Tristan Gray join the NRI list, while Brandon Eisert jumped onto the 40-man roster after the White Sox claimed him from the Tampa Bay Rays. In order to make room, they designated Steven Wilson for assignment.
Drury was last seen having a miserable time with the Angels in 2024, hitting .169/.242/.228 over 97 games and compiling the kind of unbelievable WAR deficit (-2 bWAR) that would stand out everywhere but a 121-loss White Sox team. A hamstring injury and a respiratory infection teamed up to cost him nearly the entire months of May and June, and while that doesn't explain the slow start, it might explain his struggles bouncing back at any point of the remainder of the season.
In the two years prior, Drury hit .262/.313/.495 (119 OPS+) with 54 homers over 263 games games while playing five places in the field. He doesn't play any position particularly well, but the idea is that he hits well enough to fill in at the most glaring vacancy, and teams tend to acquire him for that purpose (he's played for seven of them in 10 years). If he rediscovers that form on the White Sox, he might last as long on the South Side as Robbie Grossman did.
Gray, who turns 29 next month, has a less impressive track record, as he's 5-for-33 with a homer and 16 strikeouts over three cups of coffee with the Rays, Marlins and Athletics over the last two years. He's a left-handed bat who topped 30 homers in Triple-A Durham in both 2022 and 2023 (albeit with sub-100 wRC+'s each time), and he's played all over the infield during his professional career, which makes him helpful for patching a Triple-A roster. He played his college ball at Rice University, so perhaps Paul Janish knows something nobody else does.
Then there's Eisert, who is the third lefty reliever the White Sox have added to the 40-man roster this winter. He has fewer MLB innings under his belt than either Tyler Gilbert or Cam Booser, and when looking at his minor-league history, it's weird that's the case. He spent the last three seasons in the Blue Jays organization at Triple-A Buffalo, and despite pitching decently in all three seasons, he didn't get called up until last year. Even then, he only pitched in three games, and all were in a different month.
The Rays purchased him from Toronto last month, but then designated him for assignment on Monday to make room for Ha-Seong Kim. Now the White Sox have the chance to see what they can do with the slider-first lefty who has below-average velocity but above-average extension. As a lefty reliever, Eisert is legally required to spin a slider, and generated an above-average amount of chases out of the zone with it.
The White Sox made room by waiving Wilson, which is weird only because they agreed to a $950,000 salary for the 2025 season last month. He came to the White Sox in the Dylan Cease trade as a good bet for reliable medium-leverage work, but he was in the middle of applying offseason mechanical adjustments that both didn't take and proved difficult to undo, and back and shoulder problems didn't help, either. The result was a 5.71 ERA (6.71 FIP) over 40 games and 34⅔ innings and, now, this DFA. Perhaps the guaranteed, above-league-minimum salary will help him clear waivers, because if the White Sox and their wide-open bullpen aren't afraid to lose him, it's hard to know what team would see him as an upgrade in his current state.
